Martin Munkácsi left Berlin in 1934. A photojournalist from Hungary, he had worked there for six years, rising to become one of the principal photographers for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, until the worsening political situation compelled him to emigrate to the US. There he gained new renown, this time as a fashion photographer. Munkácsi advanced to become the best-paid photographer of his time, rising as quickly as he would later, ultimately, be forgotten. When he died in 1963, Richard Avedon was nearly alone among his colleagues in paying tribute to the former prince of photography.

The Deichtorhallen retrospective, organized by F. C. Gundlach, does an impressive job of presenting Munkácsi’s complete oeuvre. Old prints and new, original submissions retouched by photo editors, unfinished book plans, magazines, and enlarged scans show not just the multilayered work of this